Eli Bornowsky Sleep 1, 2, 3, 4

Each year, Malaspina awards the Print Research Residency to a local artist who has no printing experience. Eli Bornowsky was the recipient of the award in 2008. Over the past 6 months he has worked closely with Andrea Pinheiro to learn multi-plate etching, relief, and drypoint. Sleep 1, 2, 3, 4 presents some of the work developed during his residency.

Sleep 1, 2, 3, 4 continues Bornowsky’s interest in the formal aspects of colour and non-representational imagery seen in his painting practice. Previous works have used 1, 2, and 3 as variables that inform the structure or logic that guides his intuitive process of non-representation image generation. With this body of work, Bornowsky increases the complexity of his approach through the addition of ‘4’.

The acts of sleeping and dreaming informed this series of prints as Bornowsky sees a correlation between his visualization process and the process of printmaking. Both are comprised of interrelated acts that build upon each other, each visitation augmenting what has come before until finally an image is created, or revealed. Inherent in printmaking is the act of the reveal, for it is only once the sheet rolls off the press and the paper lifted off the plate that the work is seen. This property, when coupled with the ability to visualize a completed work in reverse through numerous step, another fundamental printmaking skill, highlights the additive and WYSIWYG nature of painting and drawing, Bornowsky’s usual manner of intuitive working. This work has come out of the gap that exists between intuition, process, and systems.